Bernie’s Mittens

I am no fashionista but I imagined there would be a post-inauguration buzz about the jewel-toned designer outfits worn by Jill Biden, Kamala Harris, and Michelle Obama, complete with the elegant, dyed-to-match leather gloves. I wasn’t ready, however, for the hundreds of memes across social media of Bernie Sanders and his large Vermont-created mittens. Because I live here. And if I don’t own a pair exactly like his, I have a box in the mudroom (another New England-specific invention) full of near look-alikes. I bet you do too.

Our Bernie is everywhere now, arms folded, face semi-grimaced even behind a mask, perched on a spindly folding chair, in his gray jacket, his hands covered in brown and cream patterned mittens. Like the meme created a few years ago with the photo of former NJ Governor Chris Christie in his beach chair, this Photoshopped image of Sanders has placed him in the cast of various Broadway shows, sharing lunch with workers dangling their legs over the famous steel girder in the sky, and waiting for curbside service at our local Norwich Public Library (photo, above) (There are literally too many to list. Here’s a start. Google liberally.)

My own, best pair of mittens from S’mitten in Vermont

I guess the secret is out then, which is really only a secret to those outside of small-town New England. Those of us who live here know our fashion choices tend more toward the functional, or as Bernie himself put it, we simply want to keep warm. Comfort, and sustaining actual life, permeate our sartorial practices.

Though exceptions do exist— I had a colleague whose footwear choices never succumbed to winter’s reality—Bernie’s observations, echoed by my own, are borne out over the vast majority of our local population. Quite a while ago but when I had lived in the Upper Valley for at least a few years, I was in an airport, returning home and awaiting the loading and departure of my flight to Burlington. There was a gate change announcement over a loudspeaker that faded in and out, so what I actually heard was that the new gate was “30-something” (couldn’t hear). I made my way to a long corridor of 30s gates, looking for a Burlington departure sign. From a distance I saw a crowded gate and knew. The waiting area was filled with people looking like, well, Bernie at the inauguration. Ah yes, I said to myself. This must be my gate. These are my people.

I wouldn’t have it any other way. And though the Bernie memes are funny, it turns out I am not alone in my love for down-home fashion. A Vermont artist, Jen Ellis, a second-grade teacher who lives in Essex Junction, VT, created and gave the mittens to Bernie a few years ago. She has reported that since yesterday, she cannot get to the end of her email. Emails—from everywhere—are inundating her inbox faster than she can open them. Apparently someone had reported that she is still making the mittens (she isn’t) and guess what? People, that is “from away” people, want a pair or two.

Those patterned wool mittens made from recycled materials have pushed the women’s elegantly dyed, designer leather gloves off the front page. It seems that it’s a new, more comfy (if still wintry cold) day in America.
——————————-

Welcome! You’re reading Artful, a blog about arts and culture in the Upper Valley, and I hope you’ll subscribe and then share this with your friends and on your social media. And in case you are wondering . . .

Susan B. Apel shuttered a lifelong career as a law professor to continue an interest (since kindergarten) in writing. Her freelance business, The Next Word, includes literary and feature writing; her work has appeared in a variety of lit mags and other publications including Art New England, The Woven Tale Press, The Arts Fuse, and Persimmon Tree. She connects with her neighbors through Artful, her blog about arts and culture in the Upper Valley. She’s in love with the written word.